Any headcanons about Andrew in juvie?
omg i know this ask has been sitting in my inbox for several months now, i'm so sorry. i've just been struggling with how to answer it.
so i have never been in the juvenile detention system, or involved in the justice system, nor have i been in foster care. so, i don't truly understand, on a personal level, how fucked up these systems are. thus, i don't think i can truly empathize with andrew's time in these systems.
however, i have thought a lot (a LOT) about how andrew's time in juvie, as well as his time in the foster system, might have shaped his psyche and his character into adulthood. i actually did a psychology project where i analyzed andrew's background and childhood and extrapolated about what certain events or conditions might have had certain effects on him that created the adult he is.
SO. if i were to extrapolate about andrew's time in juvie, though i don't know much about it, i would say:
he probably felt the need to bulk up and be able to defend himself; andrew was probably always a small kid, and probably would've been a target (or felt like one, at least). i think juvie is prob where he got in to weightlifting and where he got so physically strong.
i also think he probably felt the need to exaggerate his performance of masculinity. not necessarily because of juvie; just because...well, he was a 12 year old boy around a bunch of other, older teenage boys, and he probably felt like he wasn't masculine enough. especially considering that this was probably the age where he started realizing that he likes guys. around a bunch of other teenage boys, that probably feels not only terrifying, but also, he probably felt broken, like he wasn't a "real" man, that he'd been corrupted (OW god this is hurting as i write this). i assume that andrew tried to assume a sort of macho persona, and that he tried to make others think he was ragingly homophobic so that they wouldn't get the idea that he was queer. (this is usually pretty common amongst teens in general, in my experience.) andrew might have ditched this act in favor of apathy later on, but i don't doubt that for a while, andrew felt that he had to work at making other think he was "normal", as far as gender and sexuality go.
contrary to all this posturing, though, i think andrew was a bookworm as a kid. i think he probably clung to school like he did to exy, back then--they were life buoys when he had nothing else to really live for (he has a pattern of this, desperately clinging to reasons to go on, which OW). again, when there's not much else to do...i think he was really good in school, secretly. i can definitely picture him hiding in his cell with a stack of books, finishing like a book a day. (stop im making myself CRY UGH)
okay, so, obviously, this hurts me, so i need to stop. but yeah, these are all the ideas i have about that period of andrew's life. idk if this is what you were looking for, but. it's what i've got. hope you enjoy my little meta :)
